Meeting Summary

HMSPDT

Seattle, WA
March 13-15, 2000

Members Present:

Dr. David Au, NMFS - SWFSC, La Jolla

Dr. Norm Bartoo, NMFS - SWFSC, La Jolla

Mr. Steve Crooke, CDFG, Long Beach

Dr. Sam Herrick, NMFS - SWFSC, La Jolla

Ms. Jean McCrae, ODFW, Newport

Ms. Michele Robinson, WDFW, Olympia

Ms. Susan Smith, NMFS - SWFSC, La Jolla

Dr. Dale Squires, NMFS - SWFSC, La Jolla

Also attending were Beth Mitchell, NOAA General Counsel, Svein Fougner, NMFS -SWR, and Larry Six, on contract with SWR to coordinate plan development.

Members of the public in attendance on one or more days during the meeting included:

Kate Wing, National Resources Defense Council

Chuck Janisse, Federation of Independent Seafood Harvesters

Doug Fricke, Washington Trollers Association

Tana McHale, Western Fishboat Owners Association and American Fisheries Research Foundation

Wayne Heikkila, WFOA/AFRF

Dan Erickson, Wildlife Conservation Society

Bob Osborn, United Anglers of Southern California

Peter Flournoy, AFRF/International Law Offices

Patrick Higgins, Canadian Consulate General

Daniel Gunn, Seattle

Vidar Wespestad, The Billfish Foundation

Review of Process to Date

Svein Fougner summarized the plan development process from the beginning. Michele Robinson and Larry Six distributed summaries of Council guidance and action from the March 9 Council meeting in Sacramento. Larry Six reviewed the Team meeting schedule through April 2001, and Peter Flournoy summarized the HMS Advisory meeting in Sacramento on March 8.

Communication with the Public

Steve Crooke stated that CDFG intends to send a mailing to every licensed vessel in California as well as about 200 organizations notifying them of this process. The Team agreed that Team meeting summaries and Team reports should be posted on the Council website after they have been approved by the Team. Advisory Subpanel recommendations and Council actions also should be posted. Larry Six stated that staff intends to post the Council minutes, which include Team and Advisor reports and Council actions. Peter Flournoy raised the issue of a bulletin board or chat room for HMS. There was no consensus on this issue. Peter also was concerned about the lack of public attendance at this meeting despite efforts by states and the Council to advertise the meeting.

Status of International Discussions and Actions

Svein Fougner briefly summarized events at IATTC and MHLC. Peter Flournoy mentioned that USFWS is recommending that basking sharks be added to CITES and was concerned about lack of consultation with NMFS and the Council on this matter. Svein Fougner will send copies of the FR notice (proposal to add basking shark).

Wayne Heikkila and Doug Fricke described the albacore fishery, Chuck Janisse described the driftnet fishery, and Patrick Higgins mentioned that Canada was considering limited entry for the albacore fishery.

Species Coverage

On March 9, the Council endorsed the Team's proposal for two species lists (management unit species and associated species) and the flexibility to move species between lists, but also requested that the Team compile information on all species and identify any data gaps.

Beth Mitchell noted that a framework procedure for moving species between lists may not be any easier or quicker than a plan amendment, and she felt more comfortable with the plan amendment process from a legal standpoint. Beth also stated that species can be included in the management unit for the purposes of data collection or bycatch.

The Team concluded that there may not be an advantage to having two lists if a framework procedure is not a good idea. The Team decided to begin with one list of all species that are landed by HMS gear and develop a matrix of species and criteria that would help in making the decision about which species to include in the management unit.

The criteria to be included in the matrix are:

• is the species highly migratory as defined in the Magnuson-Stevens Act or Annex I of the Law of the Sea?
• is it important in the landings (i.e., moderate to high value)?
• is there a special biological concern for the species?
• is it a likely candidate for international regulation?
• does a biological-based MSY estimate exist or can one be calculated with the available information?
• does age and growth information exist?
• does information on essential fish habitat exist?
• does satisfactory economic information exist?
• is the species also bycatch in a HMS fishery?
• is the species caught by commercial or recreational fisheries or both?
• is it included in the management unit of the Western Pacific Council Pelagics Plan?
• do species-specific federal regulations exist?
• what special issues exist, if any?

The Team developed two versions of the matrix. Draft #1 includes all species landed by HMS gear and draft #2 eliminates the following species: brown and gray smoothound sharks, horn shark, mud shark, Pacific angel shark, swell shark, and opaleye.

During a later discussion of the species matrix, the Team decided to add another column to the matrix entitled "data source" and to add a description of the column headings. The Team also discussed additional species, including bullet mackerel, mola, black skipjack and shortbill spearfish. The Team decided it was appropriate to consider additional species but opted to wait until the June meeting. Michele Robinson will revise the matrices per Team discussion.

Review of HMS Gear Types

Sam Herrick presented numerous tables of commercial (PacFIN) landings by nominal HMS and non-HMS gears. The analysis groups HMS gears into the following categories: albacore bait, albacore troll, HMS driftnet, HMS longline, swordfish harpoon and tuna purse seine. (At the March meeting, the Council adopted the following 5 gear groups: surface hook and line, pelagic driftnet, pelagic longline, pelagic purse seine and harpoon).

Based on the results presented, it appears that there may be some significant errors in coding gears on the fish tickets, and it is difficult to distinguish between HMS fisheries and non-HMS fisheries within gear codes. For example, there is no way to distinguish set longline gear from pelagic longline gear in California. These discrepancies create a misleading picture about landings by HMS gears and non-HMS gears. The Team recognizes these problems and emphasized that this is a work in progress which should not be cited or distributed.

Bycatch

The Team discussed the sources of bycatch information. These include the driftnet fishery observer program, former experimental drift longline fishery for blue shark (CALCOFI), IATTC work group on bycatch, longline fishery outside 200 miles, experimental driftnet fisheries for thresher shark off Washington and Oregon, and voluntary logbooks for albacore.

There was some discussion about predation "bycatch." This should not be considered bycatch, but needs to be accounted for as part of total fishing mortality. Data on predation exists for the driftnet fishery.

State Regulations

Michele Robinson distributed an updated draft (draft #2, March 2) of comparison of state regulations for HMS fisheries. She asked that Oregon and California review this draft. The Council asked the Team to identify any problems as a result of inconsistent or missing regulations and develop recommendations for resolving problems.

Chuck Janisse felt there were some glaring inconsistencies in regulations. For instance, California driftnetters cannot land in Oregon or Washington. California prohibits longlining but Oregon has a longline permit fishery, so an Oregon vessel could fish with longline gear outside 3 miles off California and land in Oregon. Chuck agreed to send an e-mail to the Team which documents these problems.

Collaboration with Western Pacific Team

David Au reported on his effort to coordinate with the Western Pacific Team on the development of definitions of overfishing and estimating MSY, F, F(msy), B, and B(msy). The Atlantic FMP is considered the model for control rules for HMS species. Svein Fougner said that there is a need to get the Atlantic HMS people together with the Western Pacific and Pacific folks to discuss a common definition of overfishing. It was suggested that this might be done at the upcoming tuna conference May 22-25.

Team Assignments

Drafting assignments were made for most of the major sections of the fishery management plan. Dale Squires and Steve Crooke will draft a FMP outline for Team review during the April 26 video conference.

Consideration of Alternatives

Dale Squires proposed that the Team and Subpanel work closely on development of alternatives. Joint Team and Subpanel meetings would be helpful in this regard. The Subpanel should provide a set of alternatives on each issue in writing to the Team and Council. This should include objectives and rationale. The Team reserves the right to add alternatives that it thinks should be included. The Team is responsible for analyzing the impacts of the alternatives. Because of time and work load, the Team may have to prioritize or limit the number of alternatives to be analyzed.

Regulatory Impact Review and Regulatory Flexibility Analysis

Dale Squires described the requirements for the RIR and RFA. The RIR requires a cost-benefit analysis. If it is not possible to quantify net benefits, then a qualitative analysis will suffice. The purpose of the RFA is to analyze the impacts on small entities. For both efforts, cost data are needed. Dale and Tana McHale described the effort to obtain cost information from the albacore fleet. The intent is to survey other fleets when funds become available. Chuck Janisse mentioned that the California Seafood Council may have funds for doing a survey of the driftnet fleet. Sam Herrick mentioned that there is a survey ongoing of the charterboat fleet, and the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey has collected economic information from anglers.

Essential Fish Habitat

Michele Robinson reported on her review of other FMPs. The Western Pacific Pelagics Plan has good information on EFH of tunas, but not sharks. David Au and Susan Smith have agreed to help out on sharks. Michele proposed that we use some information from the Pacific Council salmon and groundfish plans on fishing and non-fishing impacts.

Stock Assessment Update

Norm Bartoo distributed revised stock assessment protocols (March 5 draft). NMFS prepares some assessments (albacore, yellowfin, swordfish, blue shark), but all assessments go through the appropriate international forum.

Next Meeting

The next Team meeting is a video conference on April 26. Participating video stations are the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, the Southwest Regional Office in Long Beach, the NMFS Portland office, and the Northwest Regional Office in Seattle. The conference begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. The agenda includes the draft FMP outline and updates on Team drafting assignments.

LDS for PFMC
Revised 04/13/00

DAW
Revised 04/14/00